The Hair Cut
by Yanagi-wa
Summary: Heero leaves Duo, Duo gives him an ultimatum. Will he understand what is at stake?


Disclaimer: I don't own the Gundam Boys. I just borrowed them.

Rated: R Language, attempted suicide. Don't flame me I said attempted

The hair cut

Duo took his knife and cut his braid in two. He cut off two thirds of it and handed it to Heero Yuy. Heero took the twenty-four inch length of hair and looked at it, shocked and startled.

"You can leave me. I understand you need time to reconcile yourself. But I'm warning you, I won't live without you forever. If you don't come back to me by the time my hair grows back out, I won't be here anymore."

"I won't be back. No one needs a burnt out 18 year old solder. I'll be around if I'm needed but you don't need me holding you back."

"Ok, Yuy. Leave me when I need you the most. I'm just about as burnt out as you. But I intend to do something with my life besides turn into a sour grump. Go get lost. Just don't forget your way back. And don't forget my warning."

Heero just walked away tucking the braid into his coat pocket.

"Quatre, do you think he understood. "Duo turned to Quatre, sobbing into his shoulder. "You'll help me won't you? When I need you to?"

"Sure, Duo, I'll help you any way I can. I told you all that a long time ago. I've got more money than several small countries. I'll support you for the rest of your life or I'll help you start a business. Whatever you want."

"I'll start a salvage yard. I'll make it the best in the universe. And any money you give me is a loan. I'm no freeloader."

Duo wiped his eyes and blew his nose. He got on with his life.

Heero Yuy disappeared into obscurity.

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GUNDAM BOYS HEROS

Gundam pilots declared heros of recent war.

Youthful plots granted full pardons for war crimes

Granted pensions; full benefits.

All four pilots gathered in Quatre's office laughed their heads off.

"Well, I wonder what Heero thinks of this. He's probably just giving the nearest Vid his death glare."

"Sshhh! Damnit, Duo's still . . . "

"Don't worry about it. It's ok. He just needs time to get his head together. He'll come back. There's still twenty inches to go." Duo gave his friends one of his patented Maxwell grins and helped himself to a beer.

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"Name"

"Heero Yuy"

"Yeah, right. Name."

"Heero Yuy"

"Ok. You're like the fifth guy claiming to be Yuy this week. ID."

Heero handed the agent his ID. With the recent pardon it was valid again.

"Shit! Ok, Heero Yuy. I don't need a resume. What do you want to do? You can have any job you want." The agent couldn't believe his luck. He had the real Heero Yuy signing up with his company.

"I'd like to train mobile suit operators. I could save lives, keep them from making mistakes."

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Duo read and signed off on the last report. He had made good on his dream of having the biggest and best salvage business. Winner Enterprises relied solely on him and not because he was Quatres friend but because he really was the best.

He spent most of his time in space. Either on his ship or on L4, he took the jobs no one else could do and he took the big jobs that small companies couldn't manage. He took any job regardless of difficultly or danger.

His people did anything he asked them to because he wouldn't ask them to do anything he wouldn't do himself, in fact he was usually leading them. He piloted the salvage suit like it was a Gundam and they marveled at his skill; every time he went out every person who owned a suit of any kind got where they could watch him

He was grace in motion. Beautiful to see. He could cut up a salvage in half the time of any crew and do it by himself. He acted like he had a death wish. But that couldn't be, he was one of the beloved Gundam Boys.

"No, I don't really have a death wish, yet. Heero will come back. He won't leave me forever. He wouldn't be that cruel. There's twelve inches to go after all."

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"Bastard, you got ice cubes in your veins, it's not even water."

"Yeah, ice cold and hard as a diamond, but I'll make sure you live to bitch about me to every other survivor. Do it again and do it right."

Heero had been training raw recruits for the space forces for over a year now and he still couldn't believe how easy they were on them how did they expect these boys to survive if they didn't put pressure on them. They had to learn how to work under pressure or they wouldn't survive.

"Yuy, I know you just want to make sure that your trainees make it through a hard job. But this is construction, not a war. They don't have to survive the kind of pressure you got used to, so lighten up a little, will you. Get some therapy or something. I'd like to be able to say that you've graduated the best not the fewest."

Heero sighed, the boss was right. It was construction forces, not Gundams, but he still wanted to turn out the best he could. He'd lighten up some and see how it went. He wondered how Duo was doing.

He had taken some of Duo's hair and braided a cord out of it. He'd also taken the ID chip out of his Gundam remote and sealed it in acrylic, the tiny rounded cube hung in the hollow of his throat. The rest of Duo's braid was treasured in his foot locker.

{He doesn't need me. I see him on the Vid and he looks happy. They all do. I'm satisfied with my life here. I'm doing something good with my skills. }

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Gundam pilot Duo Maxwell petitions courts for permission to avail himself of Assisted Suicide facilities

"Duo, what the hell are you doing. I thought you said you didn't have a death wish."

"I don't, not yet, but there's only four inches to go. I just want to be prepared. I don't think he's coming back. Remember, Quat, you promised to help me when I needed it."

Quatre turned to Trowa, throwing his hands in the air, he wailed, "He won't listen to me. You try!"

"Maxwell, when did this start? You've been happy, haven't you? You have a good business, friends, money. What else could you want that you don't have?" Trowa was baffled, as were they all. Duo had seemed happy, acted happy. How had things come to this pass? Petitioning for an assisted suicide.

"It started the second Heero left me. He took my heart with him and I can't live without it anymore. I told all of you that I would wait, be happy, do everything I dreamed of, until my hair grew back. It's almost as long as it was when the war ended. When it grows back, when it is as long again as it was then. If Heero hasn't come back, I'll know he's dead and I'll go after him."

Duo sat down in the nearest chair and started to cry.

"I can't stand it much longer. It's starting to hurt too much."

Quatre called Chang Wu Fei to come.

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"Hey, Yuy. Didn't you have some kind of special relation with Maxwell? The Gundam Pilot with the hair?"

"Yeah, Duo. He was . . . "

Heero got a sudden pain in his chest. He had thought about Duo everyday, he'd watched him as he danced through life. He was on the Vid from time to time and Heero had satisfied himself with the glimpses he'd had. Seeing him at Quatre's annual ball and the times he'd successfully completed a particularly difficult salvage. It had been enough, hadn't it?

"Yuy! You ok? You already heard didn't you. I'm sorry . . . "

Heero grabbed the technician by his coat and snarled. "Heard what. I've been training in the belts. Out of touch for the last week."

"OH! I'm sorry, I didn't know, please put me down."

Heero dropped the man, slightly embarrassed, he didn't usually lose control like that.

"He's applied for an assisted suicide. You know he'll get it. You Gundam Boys get most anything you want. Not that I'm complaining, you deserve it. After everything you did for Earth . . . well, you know."

Heero didn't know. He'd blocked off most of his experiences as too difficult to deal with, but they had come back to bite him anyway, so he'd gone into therapy out here on the rim of the solar system. He was doing well, he was actually finding out that it was all right for him to want things for himself.

When the light came on it was blinding. He finally realized what he wanted. And it was about to be taken away from him forever.

"Damnit Maxwell. You better wait on me. There's still two inches to go."

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"Boss I'm taking the speeder. I got to get to L4 as soon as I can."

"OK, Yuy, but it'd help if I could put a reason on the requisition." The Flight Master started filling out paper work.

"Yeah. That Braided Baka is petitioning for an assisted suicide and I've got to get there in time to stop him." Heero was quietly frantic. If Duo jumped the gun, Heero checked the new model pulse pistol he carried in the usual back holster.

"Hey, I heard about that. Claims someone broke his heart, ran off and left him when he needed them. I'd like to give that bitch a piece of my mind. Poor guy, after all he went through for us, everything you all did for Earth . . . shit! I'm gettin all scrambled. You know what I mean." The Flight Master looked down at his papers again, surreptitiously wiping his eyes.

"Damnit, hurry with those papers. I'm the bitch and I've got to get there in time." Heero felt like pulling his pistol on the man but he couldn't write any faster.

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"Duo, you promised to wait until your hair was as long as it used to be. There's still an inch to go."

Chang Wu Fei had managed to hold up the permissions needed for almost three weeks, but they had finally been given. Everyone was at the facility. Duo had taken all the tests and signed all the appropriate papers.

"I know, but at this stage of the game what difference does an inch make one way or the other. Heero's gone. He wouldn't leave me this long if something hadn't happened to him. He's dead and he's taken my heart with him. Shinigami's gonna find him and kick his ass."

With Quatre, Wu Fei and Trowa by his bed side, Duo Maxwell winced as the nurse put the needle in his arm.

"Hey! Take it easy. Little stick my ass." Duo grinned at the nurse and patted her hand. She had tears in her eyes and left hurriedly.

"So I get a sedative drip, and go to sleep and never wake up. I'll wake up on the other side and Heero will be there waiting for me. That's all to the good. At least I'm not wet, cold, hungry, wounded and in some god awful ditch or something. Never thought Shinigami would die in bed."

Duo settled down in the warm, dry bed. He'd had a nice meal and made confession, everything he'd never thought he'd get when he'd been a Gundam Pilot.

"You know my life after the wars was good. I had everything I ever dreamed of. Good friends, nice place to live, great company. I really liked building it up. Quatre, man, promise me you'll take care of my people, they're not too happy with me, ya know."

"Ok, Duo, I'll take good care of your company. Why don't you wait a while longer, help me get on the right page with your executives, get things ready for you to go leave them?" Quatre tried one last time to get Duo to change his mind, at least for a while longer. His search for Heero had failed. If Yuy didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be found.

He'd found exactly one hundred seventy-four Heero Yuy's. Only none of them had been the right one.

"NO! Quatre, that won't work. I know you've been looking for Heero and haven't found him. Trowa, don't let Quat make himself sick, Woofers you too. I know you've both been looking for Heero, if you two can't find him he's not around to be found."

It was a sign of his grief that Chang Wu Fie didn't tell Duo not to call him Woofers.

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"Yuy, you can't just abandon a ship in the middle of the pad like that You've got to check in with port authority and all that."

"Fuck the authority. Anyone or anything that gets between me and the Assisted Suicide Facility is dead. I've got to get there and stop that Baka from killing both of us."

"Hey! You the real Yuy?"

"Yeah, I'm the real deal. Get outta my way. I got to get a vehicle fast."

The tow motor operator took his life in his hands. He grabbed Heero Yuy by the arm, "NO! Don't kill me. Here, keys to my bike. Right there, the green one. Hurry! They're reporting it on the radio. He's got the needle in his arm. You've got about twenty minutes. Go! Go!"

"Where? I don't know where it is." Heero was exhausted, he'd forced the ship to its highest speed which meant it couldn't be left on auto pilot. The trip had taken twenty hours at speeds that had ruined the engines and stressed the shell beyond tolerances.

"See that green building across the field? Right there." The man pointed. "You cut straight across the field, cut the fence and you're right at the door, five minutes at best. "

Heero made it across the field in two minutes, he wreaked the bike, pulled the fence out of the ground and crawled under it, smearing himself with dirt and grass. When he hit the door of the facility the security men tried to stop him.

Heero didn't even bother fighting the guards. He just ran them over as if they weren't even there.

"Maxwell, where is Maxwell. I'm Yuy, the real Yuy. I"ve got to stop him."

Heero hit the desk like a thunder bolt and started jerking charts out of the rack like a mad man. The nurse took one look at him and made up her mind.

"Come with me. If you're lying I'll kill you slowly. He's right here."

Duo looked so peaceful with his beautiful hair spread around him like a water fall of cinnamon colored silk. Heero just froze in the doorway. He was too late! He felt his heart shatter into a million bits and cut his insides to shreds. He reached into the small of his back and drew his pulse pistol. It wouldn't make a mess like the old-fashioned lead throwers. The sonic pulse would just punch a tiny hole in his skull and scramble his brain.

Wu Fei acted so fast that a grief-stricken Heero didn't have time to do much of anything. One minute he was looking at his soul, the next he was looking at the ceiling.

"Quatre, clamp that IV off. Trowa help me with Yuy. He's almost out of it . . . Heero, you're in time. . . You hear me, man, just barely, but you're in time, you asshole."

Heero realized that Chang had punched him in the head and was now sitting on him, with Trowa headed his way fast.

"NO! He's dead! You're lying to me. You just . . . let me go. Duo, damnit, why?"

"Because his poor heart finally broke over you. Yuy, you never understood the depth of his love. He waited and waited. Why didn't you come back?"

"He looked happy . . ." Heero's head snapped back. The meaty thud let him know that Trowa had punched him.

"Duo managed to look happy at his own execution, you shit."

Heero Yuy the perfect solder started to cry.

Quatre opened his space heart and felt Heero. "Leave him alone, he really didn't understand until Duo petitioned. Then he came as fast as he could. He's all torn up inside. Don't be mean."

Trowa and Wu Fei pulled Heero to his feet and led him to Duo. A still breathing, sleeping Duo.

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"Aaaww, man! I'm wet. I knew it was too good to be true. I'm still fightin' and I'm dyin' in a damn ditch somewhere. At least I'm . . . What the hell?!"

Duo looked up and settled down happily, a real smile on his face for the first time in three long years.

"I'm really dead then. Hey, Heero, I didn't know angels could cry."

"I'm no angel. You Baka."


End file.
